for entertainment of strangers, or upon such occasions, they may be fit also: yet care would be taken, that in such cases they be set off more with wit and activity than with costly and wasteful expences. 11. But for the King, Prince, Lords and Chivalry1 of the court, I rather commend, in their turns and seasons, the riding of the great horse, the tilt, the barriers, tennis, and hunting, which are more for the health and strength of those that use and exercise them, than in an effeminate way to please themselves and others. 12. Dice and cards may be sometimes used for recreation, and to unbend the bow, when field-sports cannot be had; but not to use them as a mean to spend the time, much less to misspend the thrift of the gamesters. 13. And now the Prince grows up fast to be a man, and is of a sweet and excellent disposition; and it would be an irreparable stain and dishonour upon you, having that access unto him, if you yourself should mislead him, or suffer him to be misled by any loose or flattering parasite: the whole kingdom hath a deep interest in his virtuous education; and if you (keeping that distance which is fit) do humbly interpose yourself in such a case, he will one day give you thanks for it. SIR, I shall trouble you no longer; I have run over these things as I first propounded them; please you to make use of them, or any of them, as you see occasion; or to lay them by, as you shall think best, and to add to them (as you daily may) out of your own experience. And I must be bold to put you in mind again of your present condition; you are in the quality of a sentinel; if you sleep, or neglect your charge, you are an undone man, and you may fall much faster than you have risen. I have but one thing more to mind you of, which nearly concerns yourself; you serve a great and gracious master, and there is a hopeful young prince, whom you must not disrespect; it behoves you to carry yourself wisely and evenly between them both: do not you so adore the sun rising, that you He speaks there of "a Queen and ladies of honour attending on her;" but not of a Princess; which was the case of the English Court in 1615 and 1616. After the Queen's death in 1619 there was neither Queen nor Princess, and if Bacon was revising and correcting the work after that date, nothing was more natural than to insert such a clause. Cavalry "in L. 2 L omits "to." forget the father that raised you to this height; nor be you so obsequious to the father, that you give just cause to the son to suspect that you neglect him: but carry yourself with that judgment, as, if it be possible, may please and content them both; which I believe truly will be no hard matter to do: so may you live long beloved of both, which is the hearty prayer of Your most obliged and devoted Servant 57 CHAPTER II. A.D. 1616. AUGUST-NOVEMBER. ÆTAT. 56. 1. ANOTHER of the most valuable of Bacon's occasional works-his proposition to the King touching the compiling and amendment of the laws of England-belongs to the period between June 1616 and March 1616-7. At what exact time within that period it was written or presented, I do not know how to determine. It may have been a work of the long vacation, or it may have been presented as a New Year's gift. But no date is needed to account for or explain it. Indeed it may be doubted whether it ought to be classed among the "occasional works" at all; for the occasion to which it addresses itself was coextensive with his adult life. Since he was a man there had been no time which did not furnish occasion for the desire, if not the endeavour, to see the laws of England digested into an intelligible and manageable code. In his first speech in Parliament of which we have any detailed report (26 February, 1592-3), though its business was to support a motion for supply, he took occasion from a remark dropped by the Lord Keeper on the multiplicity of the existing laws, to enlarge (in terms which, as far as we can judge from the imperfect report, were substantially the same as the commencement of this paper) upon the importance of reducing and abridging them.1 In his "Promus of Formularies and Elegancies," which was begun at the commencement of the Christmas vacation of 1594, we find among other quotations, applicable, though not complimentary, to the condition of the law, the following note:-" Jurisconsulti domus, oraculum civitatis: now as ambiguous as oracles."2 A few weeks after, in the playful device which he contributed to the Christmas revels at Gray's Inn, he put 1 See above, Vol. I. p. 213. 2 Works, vol. vii. p. 192. the same topic into the mouth of one of the councillors of the Prince of Purpoole, whose part was to "advise virtue and a gracious government." "Then look into the state of your laws and justice of your land purge out multiplicity of laws: clear the incertainty of them repeal those that are snaring; and press the execution of those that are wholesome and necessary: define the jurisdiction of your courts:" etc. In January, 1596-7, he dedicated to Queen Elizabeth the first sample of his Maxims of the Law,-a collection of the principal Rules and Grounds of Law dispersed through the whole body of decided cases—a collection which he meant to be his great contribution to the science of his profession, and a principal auxiliary in the work of law reform; and again in his dedication took occasion to magnify the importance and beneficence of that work. "But I am an unworthy witness to your Majesty of a higher intention and project, both by that which was published by your Chancellor in full Parliament from your royal mouth in the five-andthirtieth of your happy reign"-this was the passage to which he had alluded in his speech in Parliament, on the 26th of February, 1592-3,-" and much more in that which I have since been vouchsafed to understand from your Majesty, importing a purpose for these many years infused in your Majesty's breast, to enter into a general amendment of the state of your laws, and to reduce them to more brevity and certainty; that the great hollowness and unsafety in assurances of lands and goods may be strengthened; the snaring penalties that lie upon many subjects removed; the execution of many profitable laws revived; the judge better directed in his sentence; the counsellor better warranted in his counsel; the student eased in his reading; the contentious suitor that seeketh but vexation disarmed, and the honest suitor that seeketh but to obtain his right relieved: which purpose and intention, as it did strike me with great admiration when I heard it, so it must be acknowledged to be one of the most chosen works, of highest merit and beneficence towards the subject, that ever entered into the mind of any king . . . . and as it is no doubt a precious seed sown in your Majesty's heart by the hands of God's divine majesty, so I hope in the maturity of your own times it will come up and bear fruit." On the 28th of March 1607, speaking in the House of Commons on the benefits that would follow a union of laws between England and Scotland, he observed that the means to the work would be as excellent as the work itself: "for if both laws shall be united, it is of necessity for preparation and inducement thereunto 1 See above, Vol. I. 2 Works, vol. vii. p. 316. that our own laws be reviewed and recompiled: than the which I think there cannot be a work that his Majesty can undertake in these his times of peace, more politic, more honourable, nor more beneficial to his subjects in all ages. . . . For this continual heaping up of laws without digesting them maketh but a chaos and confusion, and turneth the laws many times to become but snares for the people, as was well said, Pluet super eos laqueos: non sunt autem pejores laquei quam laquei legum. And therefore this work I esteem to be indeed a work (rightly to term it) heroical, and that which if I might live to see, I would not desire to live after." On the 28th of July 1608, in a sheet of private memoranda concerning "Policy," we find these: "Persuade the King in glory, aurea condet sæcula. "New laws to be compounded and collected: lawgiver perpetuus princeps.”2 The next day, "the recompiling of the laws of England" is set down in a list of his own "services on foot."3 And it was probably in pursuance of the design here indicated that he addressed or thought of addressing a letter to the King, of which all we have and all we know is the unfinished draft which follows; and the date must remain altogether uncertain, because such a letter, referring as it does to a subject which was never absent from his thoughts, might have been begun at any time. May it please your Majesty,* Thinking often, as I ought, of your Majesty's virtue and fortune, I do observe not without admiration that those civil acts of sovereignty which are of the greatest merit, and therefore of truest glory, are by the providence of God manifestly put into your hands, as a chosen vessel to receive from God, and an excellent instrument to work amongst men, the best and noblest things. The highest degree of sovereign honour is to be the founder of a kingdom or estate; for as in the acts of God the creation is more than the conservation, and as amongst men the birth-day is accounted the chiefest of the days of life, so to found a kingdom is more worthy than to augment or to administer the same. And this is an honour that no man can take from your Majesty, that the day of your coming to the crown of England was as the birth-day of the kingdom intire 1 Vol. III. p. 366. note. 2 Commentarius, vol. iv. p. 73. 3 Ibid. p. 94. Gibson's Papers, vol. viii. f. 222. A draft, apparently, though not in Bacon's hand dictated, probably. No date or docket. |